Russia's economic reforms achieved their initial goal - the rapid and irreversible destruction of the Soviet economic system - but consigned millions of Russians to poverty. By 1994 70% of the economy had been privatised but inflation remained in three figures, and output continued to slump. Meanwhile, corruption flourished. At the end of the decade one third of the country was living below the poverty line of $38 per month, free healthcare was for most a distant memory, and the country's population was rapidly shrinking.